Concern in Israel That Syria May Be Seeking a Military Confrontation

Mounting Israeli casualties in Lebanon have increased concern here that Syria may be seeking a new military confrontation with Israel. They have also brought calls from both coalition and opposition sources for a unilateral withdrawal of Israeli forces to a security zone in south Lebanon.

The latest fatalities were Capt. Zvi Makles, 21, of Savion and Lt. Menachem Reich, of Haifa, also in his early twenties, who were killed yesterday in a clash with Palestinians along the Beirut-Damascus highway near Sofar an the Israeli-Syrian cease-fire line.

A military spokesman said four Palestinians were killed trying to infiltrate the Israeli lines from the Syrian-occupied area of east Lebanon. They were carrying Soviet-made Kalachnikov rifles and U.S. M-16s.

The two Israeli officers were buried today. Their deaths brought to three the number of fatalities suffered by Israel’s armed forces in Lebanon in a period of six days. An Israeli soldier was killed on April 14. Sources here said the improved weather in Lebanon has resulted in stepped up attacks on Israeli forces by Syrians using Palestine Liberation Organization units sheltered behind their lines as proxies.

Israeli fatalities in Lebanon, both during the war last summer and after the cease-fire in September, are approaching 500. This has led to proposals that Israel pull its forces back to the Awali river line which is the approximate border of the 28-mile security zone in south Lebanon to spare further casualties.

SOME MKS URGE UNILATERAL WITHDRAWAL

Minister-Without-Portfolio Mordechai Ben-Porat said today that Israel had to consider only its own security needs and expressed hope that the Cabinet would now discuss his proposal for a unilateral withdrawal. Ben-Porat, a member of the former Telem faction which merged with Likud after the death of its founder, the late Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, is regarded as a hardliner.

But similar urgings for a unilateral withdrawal came from Labor MKs God Yaacobi and Yossi Sarid, an outspoken dove. Yaacobi called on Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres to convene the party’s political committee immediately on the issue. Sarid said Israel is paying a daily price in blood for no possible political or security gain. He warned that the Likud government could lead the country into a new war with Syria.

The Labor Party in fact issued a communique today in a similar vein. It stated that the tension caused in part by the continued deployment of Israeli forces in Lebanon could be relieved only by their withdrawal. “It is unacceptable to maintain a prolonged negotiations process with false announcements of breakthroughs when our soldiers sink in the Lebanese mud, and when the prospect of another war knocks at our door,” the statement said.

The government so far is pursuing its political and security aims in the four month-old tripartite talks between Israel, Lebanon and the U.S. It insists that Israeli forces will be withdrawn from Lebanon only after satisfactory security arrangements and some degree of political normalization are ageed to by the Beirut government, and only if Syrian and PLO forces pull out.

DAMASCUS PRESSURE ON LEBANON SEEN

Some observers have suggested that the increase in Syrian-backed PLO ambushes and hit-and-run attacks on Israeli forces represent the application of pressure by Damascus on the Lebanese government not to make political concessions to Israel. The attacks are being escalated because an Israeli-Lebanese agreement seems to be imminent, they said. This theory is given some credence by the fact that the Syrians are exerting strict control over the PLO forces under their protection meaning that they intend to avoid an all-out direct confrontation with Israel.

Only a few hundred yards separate Israeli and Syrian lines in Lebanon. An estimated 5,000-6,000 PLO men are believed to be based behind Syrian lines and another 1,500 deployed in north Lebanon, But the Israelis have defected large-scale military preparations by the Syrians themselves, bolstered by massive military hardware supplied by the Soviet Union to replace the heavy losses the Syrian army and air force sustained during the war in Lebanon last summer.

Defense Minister Moshe Arens said this week that it was not entirely clear whether the Syrians, egged on by the Soviets, are preparing for renewed warfare with Israel in Lebanon or are taking defensive measures against a possible attack by Israel. There are “worrying signs” from Syria, Arens said yesterday in a briefing to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee.

He said the Israel army must remain on maximum alert because the Syrians may think that they can act with impunity under the umbrella of Soviet SAM-5 long-range anti-aircraft missiles. “But the umbrella has holes in it.” Arens warned.

He also implied that there was a possibility that the Syrians and their Soviet patrons genuinely fear that Israel may take the initiative against them. Former Premier Yitzhak Rabin endorsed that idea in a recently published article in which he analyzed the Soviet warning last month that if Israel attacks Syria, the Syrians would not fight alone.

Still another view is that Syrian military moves and the tough rhetoric from both Damascus and Moscow is paving the way for Syria to pull its forces out of Lebanon without seeming to do so under duress.

Meanwhile, according to the Israelis, they are doing their best to torpedo an Israeli-Lebanese agreement. Some Israeli circles blame Syria for the Beirut government’s refusal to agree to Israeli security demands and political normalization.